Things are not going well for London Irish. The 20-11 defeat by Leicester Tigers at Welford Road 11 days ago exacted a heavy price with injuries depriving us of David Paice and Marland Yarde until well into the new year.

In an ever shrinking squad more and more players are being asked to fill big boots.

Other clubs have their own problems. Wasps had a terrible game the previous week when London Irish-upon-Avon (otherwise known as Bath) won 28-5 at Adams Park. But crucially when Dai Young took his Wasps team to meet the real Exiles at Madejski Stadium last Saturday he was able to make eight changes.

Andy Goode is too canny an old Warrior to have two bad games on the trot. The former Worcester fly-half carried out Dai Young’s game plan: kick for territory, dominate the scrum, force the penalties, take the points.

Irish saw this coming but with limited options could do little other than put their Wizard of Oz James O’Connor boot to boot against Goode.

To be honest, both sets of fans were more interested in the win than how it was obtained.

Within limits. Even the visiting support condemned the Pest who screamed out as James went to strike the ball.

His penalty attempt at goal missed narrowly. Luckily it did not affect the result, a 19-12 win for Wasps.

There may be problems in the set-piece, but in the loose the forwards are putting up an almost impenetrable wall.

The last three tries Irish have conceded have been from the referee’s whistle rather than an opponent grounding the ball over our try line.

Wasps, unable to find a way through, laid the ball back for Goode to chip over the defence.

The short in-goal area at Madejski normally comes to our aid. Nine times out of ten the odd-shaped ball will skip over the dead-ball line or sit up for the defender.

This time a vicious bounce had James O’Connor stretching for the ball. His hand knocked it forward into the surprised arms of Topsy Ojo as he tracked back.

The Television Match Official judged it to be deliberate and awarded the only try of the game. The most exciting passage of play was in the dying minutes when Irish finally pulled out all the stops in a bid to salvage a draw. It was not to be.

When the excitement evaporated, the disappointment of a sixth successive loss kicked in. Both emotions masked the reality that this was an uninspired game that both sides were afraid of losing.

Another losing bonus point edged us further away from Worcester. The glass might be half full, but half a glass will hardly be enough to retain key players coming out of contract.